1. Technical Field
This invention is directed toward a system and method for video compression/decompression. More specifically, this invention is directed towards a video compression/decompression system and method that provides a reliable, low bit rate video stream with some color features. This bit stream can be transmitted via relatively low bandwidth wireless networks.
2. Background Art
Network services are being developed towards allowing users to access information anywhere, any time, and on any device. Video is an important part of the information required to meet this demand. While it is relatively easy to transmit popular MPEG [1] or H.26x [2] video via a broadband network, it is not so easy to transmit video through wireless networks with limited bandwidths. The bottleneck of transmitting videos through any network is usually in the low bandwidth end.
As a solution to transmitting video under low bandwidth network conditions, a video form was previously proposed, called bi-level video [3]. Bi-level video is generated by converting a gray-scale image to a bi-level image and then compressing a bi-level image sequence into a bi-level video. Special considerations are taken into account in the threshold and compression processes so that the resultant videos possess low bit rate, clear shape, smooth motion, and low latency properties. Although bi-level video achieves a very low bit rate, its appearance is only black and white. A great improvement could be made to the bi-level video if color could be added to its black and white appearance, while maintaining its low bit rate qualities.
It is noted that in the preceding paragraphs, as well as in the remainder of this specification, the description refers to various individual publications identified by a numeric designator contained within a pair of brackets. For example, such a reference may be identified by reciting, “reference [1]” or simply “[1]”. A listing of the publications corresponding to each designator can be found at the end of the Detailed Description section.